A Bizarre Imperial Reign in Central Africa
Jean-Bedel Bokassa, or Bokassa the First as he came to style himself, tortured suspected political opponents, then fed their corpses to crocodiles and lions kept in his private zoo. There were also widespread accusations of cannibalism, triggered by photographs in Paris-Match magazine which showed a freezer containing the bodies of children. Among Bokassa’s many atrocities, the most infamous was the arrest of hundreds of schoolchildren in 1979 for refusing to buy school uniforms from a company owned by one of his wives. Bokassa personally supervised the murder of over 100 of them by his imperial guard.
The torture and massacre of children was a final straw, and soon thereafter, French paratroopers deposed Bokassa. He went into exile in France, but within a few years of lavish spending, he wasted the millions he had embezzled. The former emperor was reduced to poverty – which hit the news when one of his children was arrested for shoplifting food. He returned to Central Africa in 1986, where he was tried and convicted of murder and treason, and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, however, and in 1993 he was released, and died three years later in 1996.
